in a sexy bun on the top of her head, and she wore a gray sweatshirt that was way too big for her frame and plaid pajama pants.
“Another nightmare,” I guessed, not really asking because I already knew.
She nodded.
Immediately, I stood, walking to the fridge. “Sit. I’ll get you a glass of water.”
I sat opposite her at the table, passing the glass to her.
When she placed the glass against her lips, I noticed her fingers were trembling.
There was an innate need in me to comfort her. Maybe it was because that was what I was used to doing—comforting people, tending to people, making sure everyone was okay.
But this need was stronger … and it took all the energy in me to keep steady and not reach for her, so I gripped my own glass, my fingers threatening to break it.
Her eyes were glued to the table. “It’s the same dream every night.”
My fingers tapped against the glass as I held my breath, waiting. I kept my mouth shut, not wanting to push her, but needing to know what haunted her every night.
Her eyebrows pulled together, and her stare turned distant, empty even. It was as though she was reliving a memory, the same way I did in my nightmares.
“I’m drowning. I can’t breathe.” A shudder escaped her as she continued, “And the thing is …”
Her expression turned slack, and the hollowness in her tone ate at my insides. Whatever was going through her head in that moment was unbearable; I could tell because I’d lived through the same pain. Maybe the cause of that pain wasn’t the same, but the end result was the same—heartache, anguish, despair.
“And it’s only a nightmare ’cause I can’t die. As hard as I try to give in to the darkness … it won’t take me.”
Her words haunted me and the whoosh of air from my lungs was audible. This time, I couldn’t help it, as my will wasn’t strong enough, and I reached over and placed a hand on hers.
She laughed then, shaking that unbearable wretchedness she’d felt away, as though it never truly existed. “It sounds stupid, right?” She lifted her eyes to mine. “But the suffering is too intense that I just want death to take me under. It makes no sense. It’s just a dream.” Her eyes flittered to something over my shoulder. “I think it just keeps happening because I can’t swim.”
I didn’t answer because something inside of me, that gift I had of reading people, told me that this recurring nightmare went deeper than what she was leading me to believe.
“You can’t swim?” I knew how this worked. I knew the power of deflection, of asking a different question to get to the bottom of what you really wanted to know.
She shook her head, and my thumb moved in lazy circles on top of her fist.
“I can’t. I almost drowned, and that’s why I’m deathly afraid of water.” She took a sip of her drink. “If I never had to take a shower, I wouldn’t.”
I registered the lightness in her tone, the words she’d uttered that was meant as a joke but I didn’t laugh. I wanted to know more. I needed to know more. “When did it happen? When you were a kid?”
Her eyes flipped to mine, her smile slipping, most likely at the seriousness of my tone. She shook her head, pulling her hand from under mine. “When I was twenty-one.”
The change in her demeanor told me I shouldn’t ask any further questions, so I gave a little. A little of myself.
“My nightmare is from the day Nat died, which weirdly was supposed to be one of the best days of my life—because it was the day Mary was born.” My heartbeat picked up in my chest. It always did when I spoke about Nat and the tragedy that had taken her life. I never spoke about her death to the kids, to my brothers. I wanted my girls and everyone around me to remember how she’d lived, not how she’d died.
“I’m sorry, Charles. I know that must have been hard.” Sympathy shone through her eyes. “And to live through it again in your nightmares.”
My eyes focused back on my glass, half-empty now. “But I get it—you wanting to just give in to the darkness.”
There were times that I just wanted to lie in bed, take a sabbatical from work, from life. No one would fault me from wanting to. But I didn’t. I couldn’t. Not when